Now, I know this is a lot for the tender ears of Americans to
take, who like to think that their government reflects their own
values of faith, freedom, and friendliness. But here is the
point that libertarians have been trying to hammer home for many
years: the US government is the enemy of the American people and
their values. It is not peaceful, it is not friendly, it is not
motivated by the Christian faith but rather power and imperial
lust.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17727.htm

===

Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?

By Tony Karon

The confrontation under way has assumed a momentum of its own,
and it may now be beyond the capability of the Palestinian
leadership as a whole to contain it. If that proves true, the
petulance that has substituted for policy in the Bush
Administration's response to the 2006 Palestinian election will
have succeeded in turning Gaza into Mogadishu.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17726.htm

Increasingly, bio fuels are likely to "starve the poor" around
the world, according to Runge and Senauer, as staples are
converted to ethanol production for the privileged - cassava in
sub-Saharan Africa, to take one ominous example. Meanwhile, in
Southeast Asia, tropical forests are cleared and burned for oil
palms destined for bio fuel, and there are threatening
environmental effects from input-rich production of corn-based
ethanol in the United States as well.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17722.htm

By voice vote, the Senate approved vague language expressing the
need to support U.S. troops. The measure reflected the Senate's
inability to bridge differences between Democrats and
Republicans on war funding legislation that Bush would sign.
http://snipurl.com/1l25c

Iraq is facing several civil wars between a number of rival
communities struggling for power and has ``fractured'' into
regional power bases, a report by an adviser to the U.K.
government said.
http://snipurl.com/1l25i

Shoulder to shoulder at the White House for the last time before
Blair steps down on June 27, the two leaders heaped praise on
each other and defended themselves against critics of a war that
is increasingly unpopular in both countries
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N17351775.htm

===

Multiple blasts kill 11 Afghan police:

A series of roadside explosions killed at least 11 police
officers in occupied Afghanistan on Thursday, witnesses and
officials said, in the latest eruption of violence blamed on the
Taliban.
http://snipurl.com/1l25s

===

Pak troops kill 4 Afghan soldiers:

At least four Afghan troops were killed by Pakistan forces in a
border clash on Thursday near Kurram agency.
http://snipurl.com/1l25w

Israel Defense Forces infantry troops and tanks entered several
hundred meters into the Gaza Strip Thursday evening at two
points, following four Israel Air Force attacks on Gaza which
left at least seven Palestinians dead.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/860522.html

The United States praised Israel on Thursday for showing "great
restraint" in the face of new rocket attacks from the
Palestinian group Hamas but added that Israel also has a right
to defend itself.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/860752.html

The armed wing of the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas has
threatened to renew its suicide bombing campaign against Israel.
They said this was in response to an Israeli air strike that
destroyed one of their security compounds in Gaza City
http://snipurl.com/1l269

===

Blair's legacy on Middle East a dark stain :

Blair's partnership with the Bush Administration and his strong
backing of Israel have supported a very narrow, radical
neoconservative agenda in the Middle East, exacerbating
conditions for wider instability in the region.
http://snipurl.com/1l26r

Scientists working with the Defense Department have found
evidence that a low-level exposure to sarin nerve gas - the kind
experienced by more than 100,000 American troops in the Persian
Gulf war of 1991 - could have caused lasting brain deficits in
former service members.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17718.htm

===

Governors say war has gutted Guard:

The National Guard, is so depleted by deployments to foreign
wars and equipment shortfalls that Congress is considering moves
to curtail the president's powers over the Guard and require the
Defense Department to analyze how prepared the country is for
domestic emergencies
http://snipurl.com/1l275

The Department of Homeland Security is breaking privacy laws by
failing to tell the public all the ways it uses personal
information to target passengers boarding flights entering or
leaving the United States, according to a draft government
report.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17719.htm

===

No Dissent on Spying, Says Justice Dept.:

Gonzales, testifying for the first time in February 2006 about
the Terrorist Surveillance Program, which involved eavesdropping
on phone calls between the United States and places overseas,
told two congressional committees that the program had not
provoked serious disagreement involving Comey or others.
http://snipurl.com/1l27z

===

A Trove of N.Y.P.D. Surveillance Files:

Undercover officers attended meetings of political groups,
posing as sympathizers or fellow activists, and infiltrated chat
rooms. Although they identified a few people who talked about
disrupting the convention, they also monitored many more people
who showed no intention of breaking the law.
http://snipurl.com/1l280

===

Ted Rall's Site Among Targets of Pre-GOP Convention Surveillance
:

According to the Times, police documents included a Nov. 13,
2003, digest indicating that posts on Rall's site were being
watched. And the police documents described Rall as "a
nationally known activist figure."
http://snipurl.com/1l281

===

In case you missed it:

The Secret Government: The Constitution in Crisis:

Host Bill Moyers exposes the inner workings of the secret
government. Though originally broadcast in 1987, it is even more
relevant today. Interviews with respected, top military,
intelligence, and government insiders reveal both the history
and secret objectives.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17720.htm

On May 15, 2007, students, faculty and staff protested the
decision by the University of Massachusetts to give an honorary
degree to Andy Card, and former head of the Bush
Administration's Iraq Study Group
http://www.traprockpeace.org/traprock_video/

I have seen men march to the wars, and then I have watched their
homeward tread, And they brought back bodies of living men, But
their eyes were cold and dead: Edmund Vance Cooke

=
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought!
Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all
other tools of murder! Strike against preparedness that means
death and misery to millions of human beings! Be not dumb,
obedient slaves in an army of destruction! Be heroes in an army
of construction! : Helen Keller

=
Don't be deceived when they tell you things are better now. Even
if there's no poverty to be seen because the poverty's been
hidden. Even if you ever got more wages and could afford to buy
more of these new and useless goods which industries foist on
you and even if it seems to you that you never had so much, that
is only the slogan of those who still have much more than you.
Don't be taken in when they paternally pat you on the shoulder
and say that there's no inequality worth speaking of and no more
reason to fight because if you believe them they will be
completely in charge in their marble homes and granite banks
from which they rob the people of the world under the pretence
of bringing them culture. Watch out, for as soon as it pleases
them they'll send you out to protect their gold in wars whose
weapons, rapidly developed by servile scientists, will become
more and more deadly until they can with a flick of the finger
tear a million of you to pieces: Jean Paul Marat

=
"The National Security Act of '47 gave us the National Security
Council. Never have we had a National Security Council so
concerned about the nation's security that we're always looking
for threats and looking how to orchestrate our society to oppose
those threats. National Security was invented, almost, in 1947,
and now it has become the prime mover of everything we do as
measured against something we invented in 1947." -- U.S. Navy
Admiral Gene La Rocque in PBS Documentary "The Secret
Government"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17720.htm

===
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